Unlock Secrets to Master Teaching and Learning

Dive into the transformative insights of “How Teaching Happens,” a groundbreaking exploration of effective teaching and learning strategies. Discover powerful methods to revolutionize your approach to education and unleash unparalleled results.

Explore the profound teachings of “How Teaching Happens” to elevate your understanding and practice of teaching and learning.

Genres

Education, Pedagogy, Teaching Techniques, Learning Strategies, Educational Psychology, Instructional Design, Classroom Management, Professional Development, Academic Research, Educational Philosophy

In “How Teaching Happens,” authors Paul A. Kirschner, Carl Hendrick, and Jim Heal delve deep into the intricate dynamics of teaching and learning. Drawing from extensive research and practical experience, the book elucidates the key principles and strategies that underpin effective teaching practices.

From understanding the cognitive processes involved in learning to implementing evidence-based instructional techniques, this comprehensive guide equips educators with invaluable insights to optimize student outcomes.

With a focus on fostering meaningful engagement, promoting critical thinking, and nurturing a supportive learning environment, “How Teaching Happens” offers a roadmap for educators to enhance their effectiveness in the classroom.

Review

“How Teaching Happens” is a must-read for educators seeking to elevate their craft. The authors’ blend of scholarly rigor and practical wisdom makes this book a standout resource in the field of education. Each chapter is meticulously crafted, offering a wealth of actionable strategies backed by research and real-world examples.

Whether you’re a seasoned educator or a novice teacher, you’ll find invaluable guidance and inspiration within these pages. With its emphasis on evidence-based practices and student-centered approaches, “How Teaching Happens” has the power to transform teaching and learning for the better. This book is a game-changer for anyone passionate about fostering meaningful educational experiences.

Recommendation

Educators Paul Kirschner, Carl Hendrick and Jim Heal summarize 30 important works in “education psychology research, learning sciences and teaching effectiveness.” Each chapter explains a significant topic, along with its implications and practical applications in daily teaching practice. Serving as a valuable companion to their previous work, How Learning Happens, this anthology covers teacher effectiveness, curriculum development, instructional design, teaching techniques, content knowledge, classroom practices and assessment.

Take-Aways

• Current educational approaches emphasize teaching at the expense of learning.
• Well-executed teacher certification fosters effective teachers.
• Set clear objectives for student learning, simplify instruction, and require students to demonstrate their learning.
• Use evidence-based, proven methodologies.
• Expert teachers understand their subject matter.
• Manage your classroom.
• How you test, what you test and how you use test results can all affect student outcomes.

Summary

Current educational approaches emphasize teaching at the expense of learning.

Many teachers embrace flawed methodologies. Students appear busy, yet acquire little knowledge. Teaching is often counterintuitive: Sometimes, teachers must do the opposite of what seems right.

“Certain aspects of modern teaching have a lot in common with early 19th-century surgery in the sense that some teaching practice looks like it’s effective but in reality, it’s making the patient worse.”

Defining or determining teaching expertise involves a complex interplay of human traits. Expert teachers are those who understand the learning content, effective instructional methods and the mechanisms of human learning.

Any teacher’s curriculum should integrate three types of content knowledge: subject matter; pedagogical (how to effectively teach the subject); and curricular (how to teach the subject at various levels). Teachers require three forms of knowledge: propositional (knowledge of evidence-based teaching methods); case knowledge (the ability to draw on the right examples); and strategic (knowing how to overcome the complex problems teaching raises).

Well-executed teacher certification fosters effective teachers.

The type and level of investment in teacher preparation significantly affects teacher readiness and, consequently, student achievement. Student demographic characteristics influence outcomes, because less-socially-advantaged students often lack access to adequately certified and prepared teachers.

“It isn’t so much a question of what teachers know or what they’re able to do but rather what teachers know and are able to do with what they know that has the most influence on the success of their practice.”

Professional development adopting a one-size-fits-all or single-point approach fails to effect lasting, meaningful changes in teaching practice. This approach wrongly assumes that teaching traits are static and context-free. Professional learning should align with students’ needs, and should define what teachers should know and do to meet those needs. Like students, teachers gain from learning strategies involving metacognition, self-regulation and connecting previous knowledge to new information. Professional development should treat teachers as adaptive learners.

The common approach to professional teaching suggests that the most effective approach is rational problem-solving that rests on foundational principles. Due to the inherent complexity and unpredictability of real-world issues, teachers should shift from a problem-solving perspective (from which they assume they have all the necessary knowledge) to a problem-setting posture (from which they first define and contextualize what they aim to address). You should understand the nature of problems, link experience to new situations, and conduct real-time experiments to test whether your hypotheses and actions align with your teaching objectives.

Set clear objectives for student learning, simplify instruction, and require students to demonstrate their learning.

Teachers should define the actions students must perform to demonstrate specific levels of comprehension. Simplify concepts and problems so learners can better understand the course material. Help students in these situations showcase the required learning or performance.

“Any idea or problem or body of knowledge can be presented in a form simple enough so that any particular learner can understand it in a recognizable form.”

Successful instruction achieves its intended outcomes. If you set clear expectations for what learners should know and be capable of, you can help them prepare for learning. Top-quality instructional objectives focus on “performance” (the expected capabilities of the learner), “conditions” (the circumstances under which the performance should take place) and “criteria” (the performance level indicating competence).

Use evidence-based, proven methodologies.

Practice “Direct Instruction” (“DI”), which has roots in prior knowledge, predefined lessons, and abundant practice in combination with extensive feedback. DI incorporates:

• Setting clear learning objectives.
• Ensuring students possess the necessary prerequisite knowledge and skills for each new lesson.
• Clearly teaching key principles of the new lesson.
• Verifying student mastery and comprehension through questioning, providing examples and addressing misconceptions.
• Offering opportunities for guided practice.
• Evaluating performance, and providing feedback on the guided practice.
• Making time for independent practice via group or individual assignments, in class or as homework.

As a mastery-based and systematic method, DI enhances students’ academic achievement and bolsters self-esteem. Review the previous night’s homework and/or recent teachings. Make students aware of the lesson’s goals before introducing new information in manageable chunks. Demonstrate procedures, provide clear examples and regularly check student understanding. Facilitate guided practice of the new knowledge. Encourage students to repeat or explain a concept or procedure by asking numerous questions and by providing abundant feedback during guided practice. Allow students to practice independently. Step in only when students need teaching assistance, and encourage help from peers. Start each week by revisiting the previous week’s lesson, and conclude each month with a review of the month’s learning.

“Learning should be durable, not only until the exam or the end of the term but much later in the next class, school level and the rest of their lives, even after not using it for a while.”

Help learners select pertinent information. Arrange it into coherent structures, and integrate it into their existing knowledge. This “generative learning” ensures active-learner cognitive engagement, prompting students to seek and connect information regardless of the instructional form. Unsupervised students will often resort to ineffective strategies such as rereading or highlighting.

Learning and performance are distinct concepts. Incorporate challenges that lead to improved long-term learning and applicability. Practicing tasks randomly, as opposed to grouped by type, might hinder immediate performance – but it boosts long-term outcomes. Spreading practice over time instead of cramming significantly enhances long-term performance and recall.

Realistic examples prove highly effective for learning and skills transfer. Structure these examples to include cues to highlight meaningful chunks of information, thereby emphasizing a problem’s inherent concept. Present at least two examples for each problem type you teach. Expose students to a variety of problem cases and corresponding solutions for every concept they’re learning.

Expert teachers understand their subject matter.

The art of teaching relies heavily on the ability to explain and illustrate through examples, analogies and connections to other knowledge. Teaching one subject well does not necessarily translate into effective teaching in another subject. Math teachers, for example, must develop deep understanding of their subject. They must predict and decipher student errors, illustrate concepts in diverse ways, and formulate alternative explanations.

“Knowing Shakespeare is not the same as knowing how to teach Shakespeare.”

“Pedagogical content knowledge” (“PCK”) proves challenging and time-consuming to acquire. General teaching knowledge serves as a supportive backbone, but initial teacher training often falls short in equipping future teachers with the necessary PCK to properly teach their subjects. Optimal development of PCK requires a solid foundation in the subject matter and in comprehensive teaching theories.

The crux of English teaching, for example, revolves around enabling students to critically engage with texts and construct diverse interpretations. English teachers must discern what students fail to grasp or misconstrue. Possessing knowledge of English doesn’t automatically equip teachers to teach English effectively to varied learners in specific contexts. Even reading skills don’t develop organically.

Manage your classroom.

Teachers often find themselves ill-prepared due to a lack of essential knowledge of effective classroom management. Consequently, they may develop or adopt teaching and learning approaches without the means to gauge the quality of their approach. Mere knowledge of a subject proves insufficient – teachers must articulate it effectively. Teachers must balance their subject expertise, passion for teaching, and unique instructional approach while maintaining a suitable level of closeness and detachment from their students.

Teaching demands expert communication. While no absolute guide works for all teachers’ presentation styles, those who exhibit higher levels of influence and proximity foster better teacher-student relationships that lead to improved student outcomes. The higher a student’s perception of proximity to the teacher, the higher the student’s motivation. And students prove more receptive to independent learning opportunities when the teacher establishes an influential role in the learning process.

“Teachers are not just merely managing a room but are creating a productive atmosphere in which students can not only flourish academically but also feel safe and validated in their own classroom.”

Use eye contact to build rapport and acknowledge student behavior. Students prove less inclined to listen to teachers who struggle to maintain control over the class. Don’t seek popularity. Instead, work to earn students’ respect. Avoid treating every student in the same manner. Recognize and address the needs of those students requiring additional support, and consider their individual circumstances. Foster a positive line of communication with parents and guardians.

How you test, what you test and how you use test results can all affect student outcomes.

Recognize the interconnectedness between evaluation, instructional decisions, and the analysis of learners and learning outcomes. Success depends on the extent to which all capable learners successfully master the material you teach. Assessment falls into two types: “summative evaluation” and “formative assessment.” Summative evaluation focuses on the overall outcomes of a program, while formative assessment allows teachers to gauge learner progress and evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching practices.

“We should accept that assessment is really just a messy indicator of learning rather than an accurate measurement of it.”

Don’t rely solely on numerical test performance, because it may fail to provide an accurate representation of progress. You should ensure that your curriculum dictates the nature of assessments, rather than allowing assessments to dictate your curriculum. Teaching with a primary focus on test preparation hinders long-term learning. Strive to measure and assess comprehension, making it the ultimate goal of teaching. If your test questions use the same language as your instructional content, they may not effectively assess comprehension. Rely more on tests that evaluate the central idea surrounding a concept than on those asking for definitions. Questions that require students to paraphrase a concept or idea prove more effective in assessing learning compared to rote recall.

About the Authors

Paul Kirschner is emeritus professor of educational psychology at the Open University of the Netherlands. He is a guest lecturer at the Thomas More University of Applied Science in Belgium. Carl Hendrick teaches at Wellington College in the UK. Jim Heal works with Deans for Impact.